Horny again?

The great thing about being a musician, is that you can listen to what you want, even though others may question your sanity, exaltation and life style, you are left up the conclusion that they are just not up to your snuff, so may it be called of style for music. Sure I have classical, rock and roll, country, heavy metal, and others, but the one thing that I go back to is my horn music. Yes in American terms it is called French Horn. I believe that it is a Godly instrument; a man blows into it, and God only knows what comes out of it. Kidding aside, when in Revelations it talks about the sound of the trump, yes it could be interpreted as a trumpet being sounded. But as history shows the horn has been around a lot longer than most other instruments. Look at the olde English days. When they went out on a fox hunt, what did they have? Bugles, and horns. And the way they blew a certain melody the others on the hunt with the lead would know what was going on. Bugle calls are still being used today in the military, for waking up, raising the flag, meal times, beddy bye time. All came from the horn. And the horn was not all that it is now. It had the same shape as it does now, just no valves. The way you could get different notes other than the overtones that you could get naturally, they stuck a hand in and "Stopped" the sound. It would either raise or lower the pitch so that you could do an entire scale just with your hand. The hand just had to shift positions to "Stop" the sound and raise or lower the pitch. It really began to be popular and many composers used the technique to make some very beautiful music. There is a site that horn players can listen and print out music that professional horn players have memorised and use to audition with. www.hornexcerpts.org. I wish I could be half as good as these pros who have been, done and seen everything. They spend their whole life playing, researching, teaching, and enjoying the horn. I guess I am just so happy to be in with this crowd and get the same joy as they do. I wish I could be at their level, but I know I am not that dedicated enough to get there. But I do enjoy listening to a concert and picking out the horn sounds, and then follow it through the concert. It annoys the heck out of my wife cause I will sit there and direct to myself the music. As I heard one saying once, Horn is Life, the rest is just details. Maybe it is time to pick it up again and get my butt in gear and enjoy the talent I was given.

Follow up on my blog

I've been writing for some time here, and it all seems to be the same. I get happy, I get sad. I repeat. Well if you caught my last post, I have a story that I wrote, published. It was about my favorite comic book stores in my area. Yes I still do collect comics. The only one I read and collect is Knights of the Dinner Table(KoDT). It is a fluke comic that ran in a magazine which is no longer in production. It was called Shadis. The master mind behind the whole thing is Jolly Blackburn. He is a graduate of Ball University in Indiana, and he began to write this comic as a filler for the rag. Little did he know that several years later, he had a following. When Shadis folded, he looked else where to publish his comic. A man by the name of David Kenzer was looking for new stuff to publish. They struck a deal and now 15 years later, they are still friends and co-writers of the most popular gaming magazine out there. They go to gaming conventions most in the east but are one of the big points in the show, due to their "Live" readings of KoDT. I've been a fan since 2000 when i first picked them up in Seattle, and thought this is a weird name for a comic, and really didn't get into it until I lived in Idaho and found a game shop there that was great. KoDT is my release to gaming when I can't game. I get to read what others get to do and enjoy it. Not completely filling but just enough to get a good laugh and remember the old days when I was single and could game whenever. Ok I went off track from what I wanted to share but I like to share the things I like to read.

Anyway, back to what I wanted to share, I have my first writing published on Associated Content. It is a site that pays you for assignments or stories you write. My first story which has yet to be published is on how to fry the perfect over easy egg. I know I had no other thought on mind so I wrote what I know. Thats what they say, write what you know. Then this last story is writing about a sports movie, game, etc... So the last sports movie I saw was The Blind Side. So we will see if it gets published too. I am hoping that I will raise enough money by writing every day and seeing how far I can go with this. It is not a full time job and I could get one soon, then I could just keep this as a hobby and bring in some extra cash when I have the chance. So we will see. I do have an interview tomorrow for a resturant in Clearfield and hoping to get on. It is for a short order cook. So we will see how that goes. Other then that, life is as it is. Same stuff different day.

My first published work

www.associatedcontent.com/article/5608446/the_best_comic_store_in_northern_utah.html

A gamer in peril

I can’t fully rememberwhen I was introduced into gaming, must have been around Jr High Freshman year in HS. My friends invited me to their place for gaming. We rolled dice, we wrote up characters, we even worked on our own games. I remember playing in HS during lunch, it was a fighter jet game my friend made up. We fought enemies like the Germans and Russains. Fired missles and guns to shoot down their planes. Had sheet letting us know what our sheilding was, how much damage we could take, what we needed to shoot down other planes, rolling, speed, etc. It was cool. We had a lot of fun. My friend Bryon also could really tell a story for D&D too. While in California I always had a chance to game. With him and several other friends I got to know, we had great groups that did a lot of fun things. Drank a lot of coke and ate a lot of pizza and doritos. Saw many characters rise and fall. Remembered a mage I ran. Had a facination with fire. He would fire ball his way through a dungeon. Until one time we came upon some skeletons in a closed cavern. I told everyone to get behind me and wait. I rolled for the spell. Bryon rolled for spell failure. What happened next killed half the party, and injured the rest. The spell went off, flew over the skeletons, hit the back end of the tunnel, where there was 3 barrels of gunpowder, I believe it was orcs that were hording. The fireball ignited the barrels and a fire ball 8 times the size I fired off came flying back at us. Destoryed the skeletons, and us as the flash came back. We were given a save roll. Many did not make it. I think I had 2 HP left as I staggered back out of the cave. Lets just say the others forbade me to ever run another mage again.




The reason I am writing is that yes I do miss the gaming group I grew up with. We all have grown up and gone our seperate ways. Some of them still live there in Red Bluff and others come back when they can. 3 years ago, I was able to find a group who liked to play, hadn’t played with the new rules but were willing to learn. All of htem are active duty AF men. One is a civillian working on the base. The others worked on the base, but still go out on TDY when called. So the group fell apart a few months after it was together. I was able to form another group lately and because I have a family, it is hard to do what i like doing. I like to go out with the guys and roll away the stress of family life. I would GM/DM but no time to study, and plan for the group to do things. So I am going back to playing and go from there.



One of the great things on being a gamer, there are things out there, that even when you can’t play you can read on what others have done. One of the magizines I read is Knights of the Dinner Table. Its a rag about gamers, for gamers. 20 years ago, a madman named Jolly Blackburn created a rag named Shadis. He created a group of characters that resembled his own group that played. It has grown since then. It is a monthly rag that goes all over the world to gamers. It has kept me company since I have not been able to game, nor be with my old group. Just recently, I found them on Facebook. His wife has already added me and I am looking at going to one of the gamers conventions they go too throughout the year. GaryCon 3. Named for the great Father of Gaming. E. Gary Gygax. RIP. If I can get and keep a job, I am hoping I can save up and go to GC3 in March of next year. If not, maybe I can look at other Cons near here. I think Vegas has one each year. It would be nice to get out and be with other gamers and enjoy that kinship. So we will see. So thats my few words I need to get out.